AFL legend's devastating Bali Bombing story

DERMOTT Brereton had I'm A Celeb viewers in tears last night after revealing he was almost caught up in the 2002 Bali bombings.

The AFL legend told his camp mates that he was holidaying in Bali with mates at the time and struck up a friendship with an American woman named Karri.

"We had a great time with her, lovely girl," he said. "Every night we would go to the Sari Club."

On his last night in Bali, Dermott and his mates had dinner with Karri and then decided to have one last drink at the Sari Club before heading to the airport to catch their flight home.

But one of Dermott's mates was paranoid they'd miss their flight and convinced them to head straight to the airport instead.

"We pulled up at the Sari Club and said goodbye to Karri, swapped emails and whatever," Dermott said on I'm A Celeb.

"We go on towards the airport. We drive about 500 metres down the road, turn left at the corner and we hear this 'kaboom'. We go, 'What is that?'"

Dermott and his mates then heard a second explosion but, unsure what was going on, continued on to the airport.

"We caught our flight, got to Melbourne, got off the plane and of course the media's gone through all the (passenger) lists."

The media told Dermott about the bombings and his first thought was, "Jesus Christ, I wonder if Karri's alright".

He emailed her and didn't hear back immediately.

"Two days later an email comes back from Karri and I go, 'Thank god'," Dermott said.

But the email was actually from Karri's dad who was on his way to Bali to try and track down his daughter and was desperate for any details that might help.

"I said, 'She showed me her ring. It had a great big turquoise stone in it.'"

The next day, Dermott received another email from Karri's dad which said, "Thank you, I really appreciate it. I went back to the morgue. I flicked through half a dozen files and one of them was the girl with the turquoise ring.'

"She got blown up," Dermott told his camp mates.

"Myself and my mates got together, we wrote endless script of her last couple of days," Dermott said. "Where we went, what she did ... Filled in every blank for every minute we could of her last couple of days."

The touching gesture was greatly appreciated by Karri's dad who told them they were always welcome at his home in Kentucky.

"Karri's sister wears the turquoise around her neck," Dermott told the other reality contestants, some of whom were in tears.

And they weren't alone, with viewers also extremely emotional after hearing the story.

202 people, among them 88 Australians, were killed in the Bali Bombings while a further 209 people were injured.